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I've never understood why the death of Jesus is important.
Everybody dies, sooner or later. Death is commonplace.
How could the death of one man two thousand years ago be good news ?

Some people say that Jesus died for our sins.
Some say that we should die, but he died in our place.
Some say that he sacrificed himself to satisfy God's demand for justice.

None of these answers make any sense to me.
I can't see how God would be happy that his son died in our place.

Imagine a judge saying to a convicted murderer,
"You are guilty, but I like you, so I'm going to let you go free and my innocent son will be executed instead."

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It does not make sense. It is ridiculous nonsense.

Supposedly omnipotent, wise, benevolent loving god gets perpetually pissed off the very 1st time humans use their "free will" & under some influence of a tempter which god allowed to tempt them, they do something god said to not do. Then this wise loving god cursed all humanity for all time for what those 2 did. The only way this omnipotent loving god could forgive humans for being human & for being cursed by god is to have a sacrifice. The sacrifice worthy of god would not come along for a very long time so, in the meantime, people were told to sacrifice animals.

Finally, Jesus, who is the son of god but also is god as 1 of the 3 gods in 1, comes along. Jesus, in what we normally think of as physical body, is the result of god impregnating young Mary without her consent yet is magicly a descendent of King David thru the ancestry of his nonbiological adoptive father. Yet Jesus, at the same time, is a spiritual being who cannot actually die.
Skipping over much absurd fantasy, Jesus is killed then resurrected then goes on to live happily ever after in paradise as he knew all along would happen. Not much sacrifice, IF any.

After all that, it works only for people who come to believe this fairy tale & pretend to communicate by telepathy with god and/or Jesus, state the belief, confess to being a sinner (being a human who unavoidably inherited god's curse) & ask for forgiveness some time in their life right up until the minute of death. Regardless of what or how much actual good or bad they did. Everyone else is yet cursed & hated by this omnipotent loving wise god & cannot be forgiven so must be punished for eternity for being born cursed by god.

An omnipotent wise god blames humans for being the humans god created & cannot well handle puny humans screwing up its plans which god knew all along would not work out well.

This makes less sense than us blaming ants for the condition of the world & our lives.

Raised Catholic, I had been told countless times that "he died for my sins."

I have never understood what that's supposed to mean. Is it really just the guilt trip?

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Simple enough, you're going to Hell if you're not grateful to Him for spending about 36 hours in Hell and then becoming the #2 guy in the Universe.

A longer version: You have sin even if you've never sinned. This is to provide the Church with a steady supply of suckers ... I mean members ... who are afraid of Hell due to endless propaganda. The Church sells an intangible and unprovable "product", and people pay for it, mostly because they can't figure out how to stop.

OK, I'm thinking of a soldier. The soldier died. I have my liberty.
Ah, I see, you think Jesus was a soldier and he was fighting for my liberty.
Was Jesus fighting ?
Who was he fighting ?
Who was threatening my liberty ?

OK
a religion whose symbol is a dead guy hanging on a cross is a tad kinky-------backtrack to the crazy guy who was gonna sacrifice his only son.................and it just gets more kinky.
What was Abrams message--------------?
"I'd be a total asshole if it wasn't for the interference of my god"?

His death fulfilled a prophesy, but more important is what happened after he died. Can't believe you haven't heard of Easter. If you rise from the dead news gets around. If you fly up into the sky into a glowing cloud people are going to know about it. Word gets around however slowly. Check out Ghostbusters. People in New York didn't know what was happening for quite awhile. Stuff was happening. They just didn't understand it. So after the fact people began putting the events together and figured it was time to: 'Who you gonna call?'

Neither is owning a credit card, but you know how to act around that right? If your imaginary friend grabs you by the throat, and then smacks you on the head you can call it whatever you want. The result is that you have a sore head. Our imaginary friends are sometimes our worst enemies.

Thing is there's a story. The story says that what you do has consequences - like you might burn in hell for doing it. So you can disregard the story or not. Some people think the story is not only important enough to hold in high regard, but also believe it to be true. They believe that disregarding the story would be a dumb thing to do. Humans may not be the most important creatures in the universe. It's your own choice of whether or not you want to spit in the eye of the invisible friend.

Liberty is an ideal. It's not any more real than your invisible friend. I would like 5 pounds of liberty please. People do what they think is right and good. The story is an architects model of how to do that, and in doing so people increase their liberty, and the liberty of their neighbors. That being said, I don't have an imaginary friend. My subconscious talks to my conscious occasionally, but that's about as imaginary as I get.

What I hold to be true either by faith or evidence is only a side issue to the story itself and how people interact with it. Taken together, the people in a church on Sunday would not all hold true the same things. They gather out of community and common interests. If they all believe in a ghost, but do good things, who are you to say that they are in bondage?

His death fulfilled a prophesy, but more important is what happened after he died. Can't believe you haven't heard of Easter. If you rise from the dead news gets around. If you fly up into the sky into a glowing cloud people are going to know about it. Word gets around however slowly. Check out Ghostbusters. People in New York didn't know what was happening for quite awhile. Stuff was happening. They just didn't understand it. So after the fact people began putting the events together and figured it was time to: 'Who you gonna call?'

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^^^
His death did not fulfill the Jewish Messiah prophecy. The prophecy was not for a god or sonofagod or 1 third of a god to die on a cross. It was for a MAN sent by god to lead the Jews & overcome their oppressors, which Jesus did not do. Christians claim Jesus fulfilled some prophecy but Jews who the prophecy was for recognize that Jesus was not their Messiah & clearly did not do what their Messiah was to do.
Other than the biased scripture, there are no records of him rising from the dead. The supposed news did not get around.

Neither is owning a credit card, but you know how to act around that right? If your imaginary friend grabs you by the throat, and then smacks you on the head you can call it whatever you want. The result is that you have a sore head. Our imaginary friends are sometimes our worst enemies.

Thing is there's a story. The story says that what you do has consequences - like you might burn in hell for doing it. So you can disregard the story or not. Some people think the story is not only important enough to hold in high regard, but also believe it to be true. They believe that disregarding the story would be a dumb thing to do. Humans may not be the most important creatures in the universe. It's your own choice of whether or not you want to spit in the eye of the invisible friend.

Liberty is an ideal. It's not any more real than your invisible friend. I would like 5 pounds of liberty please. People do what they think is right and good. The story is an architects model of how to do that, and in doing so actually increase their liberty, and the liberty of their neighbors. That being said, I don't have an imaginary friend. My subconscious talks to my conscious occasionally, but that's about as imaginary as I get.

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^^^
It is not my choice. I CANNOT believe something without proper evidence. I cannot do it.
I cannot believe obvious absurd nonsense. I cannot believe in the horrible cruelty described of the god in the bible.
I cannot believe in the utter stupidity of an omnipotent god being perpetually pissed off because the humans it created are the humans it created them to be. I cannot believe in the absurdity of an omnipotent god blaming puny humans for screwing up its perfect plan which it knew all along would not work out well.
I cannot believe in a savage vindictive monster who would punish people for eternity simply for not believing and/or for what the 1st 2 humans did.

There are many stories & I have no more reason to believe 1 than any of the others.

The story should say that what god does has consequences but god takes no responsibility. IF I burn in hell, it will not be for anything I have done.
Most people believe, or pretend to believe, the story because they were brainwashed & frightened as children then coerced into conformism. Which is a dumb thing to do, to say the least.
The vast majority, if not all, of religion definitely does not increase liberty. It not only directly decreases liberty of individual believers but it also inspires them to try to decrease everyone's liberty.
I do not know why you say YOUR imaginary friend or why you say imaginary FRIEND. If you chose to make that change, that is fine but I said imaginary FIEND.
And until some god gets up the courage to come out of hiding & show itself, it is imaginary.

His death fulfilled a prophesy, but more important is what happened after he died. Can't believe you haven't heard of Easter. If you rise from the dead news gets around. If you fly up into the sky into a glowing cloud people are going to know about it. Word gets around however slowly. Check out Ghostbusters. People in New York didn't know what was happening for quite awhile. Stuff was happening. They just didn't understand it. So after the fact people began putting the events together and figured it was time to: 'Who you gonna call?'

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The events were retrofitted to match the prophecy. Shirley you knew this.

You have to understand the whole complex of practices relating to animal sacrifice in antiquity. Which Second Temple Judaism, at the time, engaged in just as much as the polytheistic religions of the Mediterranean world. The use of a sacrificial figure to expiate the crimes or bad luck of the community was unremarkable, it was commonplace and completely normal. It's just that it was usually a livestock animal. In Christianity, the general belief appears to be that Jesus was anointed to be this expiatory sacrifice for the whole of (originally, the Hebrews, but over time it developed into...) humanity.

But there are, of course, variant theological positions. Many of which try to distance themselves from their roots in ancient sacrificial practices.

^^^
It is not my choice. I CANNOT believe something without proper evidence. I cannot do it.
I cannot believe obvious absurd nonsense. I cannot believe in the horrible cruelty described of the god in the bible.
I cannot believe in the utter stupidity of an omnipotent god being perpetually pissed off because the humans it created are the humans it created them to be. I cannot believe in the absurdity of an omnipotent god blaming puny humans for screwing up its perfect plan which it knew all along would not work out well.
I cannot believe in a savage vindictive monster who would punish people for eternity simply for not believing and/or for what the 1st 2 humans did.

There are many stories & I have no more reason to believe 1 than any of the others.

The story should say that what god does has consequences but god takes no responsibility. IF I burn in hell, it will not be for anything I have done.
Most people believe, or pretend to believe, the story because they were brainwashed & frightened as children then coerced into conformism. Which is a dumb thing to do, to say the least.
The vast majority, if not all, of religion definitely does not increase liberty. It not only directly decreases liberty of individual believers but it also inspires them to try to decrease everyone's liberty.
I do not know why you say YOUR imaginary friend or why you say imaginary FRIEND. If you chose to make that change, that is fine but I said imaginary FIEND.
And until some god gets up the courage to come out of hiding & show itself, it is imaginary.

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Talking about liberty: Do you really believe we have liberty ? I don't like wear seat belts , I have been in court several time and fined , tell me , so what about my liberty , do I have done any damage to anybody ? Liberty , I can name many more. Liberty is a buzz word and no more .

Talking about liberty: Do you really believe we have liberty ? I don't like wear seat belts , I have been in court several time and fined , tell me , so what about my liberty , do I have done any damage to anybody ? Liberty , I can name many more. Liberty is a buzz word and no more .

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As someone who got feed up with scrapping someone's smashed face and brain matter off windshields (the ones who survived that is) I resent the damage they do to the heath system which the taxes I pay to maintain

It might be you stay in hospital a short time and either die or recover and leave or remain in hospital a long time in what is colloquially called a vegatative state

Not a nice condition to be known as but guessing even worse to be in

Frequently I would get a double dose. First as a volunteer ambulance medic driver. Next as a Registered Nurse in the surgical ward

I would give you your liberty not to wear your seat belt if you give me the liberty to put a sticker on your windshield saying "Do not remove my face and brain matter from this screen". Make sure you don't make it unreadable as you pass through it